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Would You Rather Not Know?

One year after Edward Snowden’s leaks, we’re better off for the debate he started.

By VALERIE PLAME

June 05, 2014

Yes, we freely share information about ourselves online through social media and web browsing. But letting private companies collect data, as the NSA does, is very different from giving it to the government, which has the power to deprive us of our freedom. The Constitution limits what the government can do, and the safeguards in the Bill of Rights were written to protect us from a federal government run amok. Accepting the NSA’s violations of the Constitution puts our democracy at risk. Unfortunately, our history is rife with examples of government surveillance tools being abused, from spying on Martin Luther King Jr. to monitoring anti-war groups opposed to the Iraq War. Why should we be so certain that such things will never happen again?

Even the fear of such surveillance can change people’s habits: A recent ESET/Harris poll found that after learning about what the NSA was doing, nearly half of the respondents said they thought more carefully about what they said and did online. Our country is now at a pivotal moment. The question before us is whether we want America to be a place where citizens are free to talk to whom we want and read what we want without looking over our shoulders.

The Senate is considering legislation to rein in the runaway surveillance state and hopefully improve on the bill passed by the House last month. Colorado Sen. Mark Udall was right when he said, “Our intelligence agencies should focus their efforts on terrorists and spies—and not law-abiding Americans.”

After the national trauma of September 11, 2001, the intelligence community amassed too much power amid an absurd level of secrecy, with more than 1.5 million people holding a Top Secret clearance. Investing intelligence agencies with this much unchecked authority endangers both our liberty and our security.

Now that the American people know the truth, the government is finally starting to move back in the right direction. So when you think about what Edward Snowden did, ask yourself: Do you wish you didn’t know?

I, for one, am glad we do.

Valerie Plame, a former career covert CIA ops officer, is author, most recently, of the spy thriller Blowback.